Malindo Air lands at Trichy airport

It was a red-letter day for the Trichy international airport as the inaugural Malindo Air Boeing 737-900 Kuala Lumpur-Trichy flight touched down at the tarmac at 11am on Thursday with 110 passengers on board including the airline's CEO, Chandran Ramamurthy. Trichy is the second destination in India for Malindo Air as it had already launched its first service to India to New Delhi on December 30, 2013.

The inaugural flight took off from Kuala LumpurInternational Airport (KLIA) at 7am (IST), with 75% occupancy and returned from Trichy at 11.55am with 173 passengers. On the important occasion, the regional passport officer K Balamurugan and acting director of Trichy airportJebaraj and playback singer Mano, Malindo's brand ambassador, were present in the morning to symbolically check in a few passengers. "By May this year, we will increase it to two services and the second will depart from Trichy at night," said Ramamurthy. After three months, Malindo Air's network carrier will allow passengers from Trichy to connect to other Malindo Air's destinations such as Bali, Jakarta, Penang, Langkawi and Bangkok. In India, the airline will fly to Mumbai from February 15 and to Ahmedabad from March 19, said Ramamurthy.

The Malindo CEO said Chennai would be their next priority to land, followed by Coimbatore, Madurai, Kochi, Hyderabad, Pune and Visakhapatnam. He said a large number of Malaysian Telugus were from Visakhapatnam and hence this place had a lot of potential for growth.

A member of Lion Group, Malindo which at present operates 11 aircraft (six Boeing 737-900s and five ATR-72 600) will add another 25 to its fleet including 11 ATRs and the rest Boeings, he said. Ramamurthy said the parent company had already bought the fleet and they would soon be leased out to Malindo. He said he foresaw an encouraging passenger growth from South India, particularly Trichy, as a large portion of Malaysia's Indian population was from this region. Even when fully booked, Malindo will have space for carrying up to six tons of cargo, he added.